Getting to Seattle and finding a home

We left sunny California behind in the middle of January so that Frank could begin at his new job up here in Seattle.

All our things were packed up and were being trucked up to Seattle, leaving the three of us with 3 suitcases and 4 carry-ons for the next foreseeable future. And an Umbrella, which it turned out came in VERY handy.

Here is an update on our first couple of months in Seattle.

We arrived in the most beautiful cold weather and blue skies. This soon changed and Seattle has apparently broken ALL rain records this year along with the rest of the west coast.

We began our Seattle stay in a temporary furnished apartment in the downtown area while we went house hunting. I have always wanted to try the 'city lifestyle', where you live close to everything and can walk everywhere. For a hot minute we even considered buying a place here so that Frank would not have to contend with any commuter traffic. However we soon realized that we are such fans of nature, quiet and no stress parking. So we quickly began looking further out. But not too far.

We really enjoyed our first months in the city though and it gave us the chance to get to know the city a little bit. The first week, we rushed out to take the 50s style monorail from 5th avenue to the space needle. We went up and saw the city and our apartment from the needle and then visited the nearby glass museum. So pretty.

The picture below of the space needle I took on our first afternoon in Seattle from the roof of the apartment building we stayed in.

Here is the furnished apartment. The two pictures below show how we found it upon arrival and the next two pictures is how it looked shortly after I had re-arranged the furniture to suit our style more.

I did consider re-hanging the artwork. As you can see it hangs about 4-6 inches too high. But I curbed my enthusiasm.

I made the sofa area a bit more inviting by moving the chair over so you didn't look into the back of it as you entered the room.

In the kitchen I swapped out the Pyrex bake ware that was on the open shelves with the more cozy looking cups, glasses and bowls from the cabinets. I also rotated the dining table so that it was no longer at a 45 degree angle to the room. It only took 10 minutes to do, but it really made a difference in how welcoming the space felt with just those few adjustments.

With that out of the way we began house hunting and we looked at so many houses online and went and saw at least 20 homes in person over the course of three to four weeks. We actually found our home pretty quickly but it took a good while to agree on all the terms. Weeks in fact. Stepping away from the deal altogether twice. But in the end we signed on the dotted line.

In the mean time spring arrived in Seattle. A very rainy spring while we were anxiously waiting for all the steps of closing to occur.

During our house hunt, whenever I looked at the clock coincidentally (?!) it would very often say 1:11, 2:22, 3:33 like below, 4:44, 5:55 etc. Take from that what you will. It was quite amazing.

Then after a loooooong time past, escrow was finally done and we got the keys. Allll the keys. This was in mid April.

We quickly packed up our 7 suitcases in the apartment and made our way to the new home. With the Seattle housing market being as crazy hot as it is at the moment with multiple bids (2 homes had over 50 bids!?), pre-inspections left and right and contingencies waived like no-big-deal, we consider ourselves extremely lucky and fortunate to not only having found a house, but our dream home. It is pinch-my-arm gorgeous here. And only 20-30 minutes from downtown Seattle depending on traffic.

Here is a picture of the drive down to our neighborhood. Being a tree-hugger this makes me super happy. Don't you just want to hug each and every three?

Here is a sneak peek at our new home. We love it so much. It is a Mid Century Modern gem. It is the most wonderful house I have ever seen and it has so many lovely features. We have lived here about a month now and my appreciation for our new home deepens every day as do our appreciation for Seattle. We have already met so many wonderful new people and made some new friends. This move has been beyond our wildest expectations!

When we are not pinching ourselves, which we do daily, we are watching the Dick van Dyke show on Netflix to study 50-60s furniture and room design. It's such a go-to resource! I may just have to begin saying 'swell' more often.

We really want to honor the architecture and history of this house. And be very respectful when we do a few updates.

Our home has been extremely well kept over the years and it has been built from the best materials so there is no hurry with any updating except for some plumbing which will be our first project.

After that we are going to just go room by room and decorate each space to really make this our place. We are planing on building some of the furniture and decor pieces ourselves and we will be setting up our workshop in the garage for that, so that is some of the first things you can expect to see here.